Effort to influence views on Benghazi attack falls short

WASHINGTON — Susan Rice’s closed-door meeting on Tuesday with three Republican lawmakers did nothing to ease their criticisms of the UN ambassador’s public proclamations over the September attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, including envoy Chris Stevens.

“I’m more disturbed now than I was before,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters after Rice explained why she initially characterized the Benghazi attack as a spontaneous eruption of violence over an anti-Islam video.

“I think it does not do justice to the reality at the time and in hindsight clearly was completely wrong. In real time, it was a statement disconnected from reality.”

Rice’s 90-minute meeting with Graham and fellow senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte came amid the roar of speculation in the U.S. capital that she’s about to be tapped by the Obama administration, possibly as early as this week, to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

Clinton wants out of the job so Rice, who’s been serving as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations since 2009, is making the rounds on Capitol Hill this week on an apparent “charm offensive” aimed at getting lawmakers behind her potential nomination.

Her first foray onto the Hill on Tuesday with acting CIA director Michael Morell, however, backfired badly, thanks to the trio of senators who have been bitterly maligning her Benghazi response for weeks.

All three of them emerged from the meeting to say they’re more bothered now about her public remarks on Sunday morning talk shows a few days after the Sept. 11 attack than they were before she attempted to explain herself.

“I’m significantly troubled by the answers we got and didn’t get,” McCain said.

“It was clear that the information she gave the American people was incorrect when she said that it was a spontaneous demonstration triggered by a hateful group.”

Ayotte, meantime, said she had “many more questions that need to be answered” and suggested she’d vote against Rice’s nomination as secretary of state.

Rice, 48, has said her public remarks about the Benghazi attack were based on talking points provided by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Those in intelligence circles suggest the talking points were deliberately vague in order to protect covert operations in Libya in the aftermath of the attack, adding that an investigation was still underway when Rice made the rounds of talk shows on Sept. 16.

Republicans, meantime, suspect Rice was covering up for U.S. President Barack Obama, charging the administration didn’t want an al-Qaida terrorist attack to taint his re-election chances.

Obama has defended Rice, most fiercely in a White House news conference held soon after his re-election.